


Whimper

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Drabble, Episode: s04e17-e18 The End of Time, Episode: s05e13 The Big Bang, F/M, Oneshot, Reunion, big bang two, eleventh doctor - Freeform, kind of sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-12 02:08:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20556467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The Doctor is experiencing his rewind as his existence is wiped from time itself - but goes back a little farther than expected.





	Whimper

He didn't want to see the rest.

The Doctor had said his goodbyes to Amy, the first wonderful face he'd seen, all vibrant and red and pale and dark and so, so wonderful. There was such potential behind those closed eyes, and oh, how he pitied the people who dared to stand in that little girl's way.

He shut his eyes tight before he walked up to the crack, but found that his journey toward the tear in the universe was suddenly very, very cold, and loud, and -

"I bet you're gonna have a really great year!"

It was a voice that he recognised, but not from the outside. Rather, it was one that he had only heard reverberating from his own vocal chords, and he opened his eyes to see that he was standing in the shadow cast by the building that his dear Rose Tyler called home, all those years ago. It made sense, really. The first face this face saw, and the last face _that_ face saw. If his world was going to end, then he supposed there was one more thing he had to do.

That radiant figure jogged toward the door that was only metres away from him, and he found his voice before she could open it.   
"He's right, you know."

She stopped in her tracks, finally letting her gaze fall on him. "That your mate, then? He's a bit..." She mimed taking a sip of a drink, and the doctor could only laugh.  
"I suppose he is," he said, then chose to clarify. "My mate, I mean." He tapped his fingers against the side of his leg, then spoke once more. "He is right, though. You're going to have a great year."  
"What, can you tell the future, or something?" She laughed, and he could only admire the amount that her perspective would change in the years to come.  
"Something like that, yeah."   
"Give me a hint, then. What makes it so great?" Her expression suggested that she wasn't going to believe him, no matter what he said - but was amused enough to play along.  
"Spoilers," he responded, gently tapping the side of his nose.  
"Come on," she drawled out. "Gotta know if I ever actually go through with my resolutions."  
He couldn't resist the urge - and if his entire existence was going to be wiped, what was a few sentences going to do? She'd never remember this, in fact, she would probably live an incredibly mundane year. "You're going to meet a man."  
"My mum'll be glad to hear that," she laughed. "But I've already got one." A pregnant pause fell between them before her curiosity got the better of her once again. "Tall dark and handsome, yeah?"  
He laughed at that. "Pretty accurate,"  
"And what's this man going to be like?" She folded her arms, protecting herself against the cold.  
"Broken," his tone changed a little bit then. "Shattered and vengeful and guilty."  
"Oh," she seemed a little bit shocked. The atmosphere around them had changed quite drastically. "Thought you said I was gonna have a great year."  
"You're going to fix that," he smiled. "He's going to be scared, and lonely, and he's going to meet you, and you're going to save him from himself - in more ways than one." The Doctor allowed his gaze to wander toward a piece of graffiti on a wall, bearing the words that cropped up everywhere he went, even after her.  
"Big responsibility, that." She said cautiously.  
"Oh, you won't notice it happening. It won't be conscious, not really. But he'll look back on how he was, and who he becomes, and he'll love you for it. He'll burn up a star just to thank you for it."  
"Makin' him sound like an astronaut." She laughed, and he laughed too, the chorus of their joy filling through the estate. "Why should I believe you?"   
"You shouldn't. I'm just a strange, probably intoxicated man you met on New Years' Eve that you'll forget all about," He smiled, but the joy was gone - it was all pain now, agony suppressed through hundreds of centuries of pretending shining through those sad, sad eyes.  
"I don't think I'll be forgetting you anytime soon," she responded, and his hearts shattered just that little bit more. God, how he hoped that she wouldn't. "How will I know? When I've met this man, I mean. What'll tell me?"  
Another smile. A knowing smile, a wretched, twisted smile as he noticed the crack in the wall beside him as it opened further, mockingly inviting him in. "When everything feels wrong, when the world is turning upside down, and you're just as confused, and just as lost as he is, he'll grab your hand, and he'll tell you to run. And you will, and you'll never want to stop." 

She was going to reply, he knew, but she was distracted by the groan of his old self's TARDIS dematerialising - whirring and screaming and crying as it said goodbye to the man it had grown so used to. She turned her head to find the source of the noise, bewildered, but when she looked back at the mysterious man she had been talking to, he was gone, along with the long crack in the wall beside him. 

And so this was the way his world ended.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.


End file.
